Mt. Joy Orchard

04/30/2026

Mark your calendar! As always, come for any part of the workparty. Dress for the weather and bring work gloves and water bottle if you got ‘em. Work parties for the 2026 season will be
the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of each month from 4-7 and the 2nd and 4th Saturdays from 9-12.

10/24/2025

This Sunday, October 26th we gather at 1pm to put the orchard to bed for the winter and celebrate the life of Ben Cooke. Ben was a regular Mt. Joy volunteer who died unexpectedly this summer. He showed up early, stayed late and worked hard. He enjoyed learning about orchard care, but like so many people who keep coming back to Mt. Joy, the most important aspect was the community. Ben was a kind, gentle person who was a joy to hang out with while pulling weeds or picking up drops. He will be missed by many at Mt. Joy and in the wider community. We will share memories of Ben, protect trees for winter and plant a memorial tree in Ben’s honor. Organized in collaboration with Ben’s Permaculture Design Certificate class cohort.

05/16/2025

05/09/2025

Unfortunately it looks like steady rain on May 10th, so we are rescheduling for the same time next week, May 17th!
🌷Come out and celebrate Spring at the Mount Joy Plant Swap, Work Party and Grafting Workshop
‘Tis the season to sow and graft and swap and sing! Join us on May 17th for an All of the Above affair. Things start with the swapping, at 9, followed by planting at 10, then grafting at Noon, and some more planting & other tasks afterwards. Potluck lunch/snacks - bring something to share if you can. We’ll sing as we go. Bring plants to swap, any implements good for grafting (and if this is mysterious, just show up with your curiosity, as it’s probably the best tool you have anyway), a song, and a willing spirit.

01/07/2025

Save the date! March 1st is our pruning workshop / winter wassail!
At 1:00pm we will have our annual pruning workshop. No experience necessary! (although experienced pruners are lovely). Bring pruning tools if you got ‘em! The workshop consists of a ~1hr pruning tutorial followed by plenty of time to practice with guidance from experienced pruners. This is one of the most important single pieces of orchard maintenance!
At 4:00pm we will have our 2nd annual Winter Wassail. Inspired by folk traditions we will share hot cider and songs in honor of the trees that bring us joy and health. Family friendly! Please bring a mug, and a snack or a song to share.

05/19/2024

Thanks to everyone who came out on this misty Sunday morning to plant over 400 wild blueberry plants at Mt. Joy Orchard! Also thanks to for providing the plants, wood chips and other materials to make this happen. Not only did we get the plants in the ground, but watered in and mulched around the edges. Our next event is Thursday (May 23) at 4pm when we will wrap up loose ends with the blueberries and work on regular orchard maintenance. We hope to see you there!

05/15/2024

We are EXTREMELY excited to be introducing low bush blueberries to Mount Joy this year. Our plan was to plant them all on our next scheduled workday, on May 24th, but fate has intervened and now we need to put them in the ground THIS SUNDAY MAY 19th.

We will be there at 9:00am on Sunday, and it will take most of the day to get this done. Please come and help! Come for one hour, or four hours or whatever you can.

04/29/2024

Update: we got more and better data and are changing our position on the development of the Northern Burner Supply lot.

Dear Friends of Mount Joy.

We received a ton of feedback and commentary in response to our recent communications about Redfern Properties’ plans to develop the Northern Burner Supply lot adjacent to Mount Joy Community Orchard. Thank you to the many people that engaged sincerely with this topic and especially to those that provided us with the information and data that has caused us to reconsider our position on the development.

The most pertinent piece of data was shared by a Mount Joy volunteer, who turned us onto this extremely helpful tool for calculating shadow casts: https://www.suncalc.org/ #/43.6697,-70.2543,19/2024.05.15/12:13/1/1.

If you are curious, we recommend that you spend some time figuring out how to use this great tool, though we have provided some screenshots to give you a sense of what we found. Suffice to say, we now have a much more detailed understanding of the shadow conditions. We feel confident that the trees in the orchard will not be threatened by the shadow cast by the housing development at the proposed height of seven stories. While the shadow of the building will certainly affect the orchard, the shadow during the growing season is pretty minimal. In the shoulder seasons the orchard will be significantly shaded and the orchard will be almost entirely shaded in mid-winter. Activity and use during these times is much lower and the trees will not be harmed by shade during their dormant period. We have attached some screenshots to give you a sense of what we found.

We do still have some ongoing concerns about the development:
Portland desperately needs affordable housing.If the city is going to allow the developer a zoning variance, or rezone this entire area to allow for the development, we believe the developer should, in return, be required to increase the percentage of affordable units in the building from 25% to 35%.
We would like assurances from the developer and the city that the orchard will not be damaged during the construction phase of development.
Mt. Joy is home to many birds. As biodiversity has increased, the bird population has increased as well. We would like to see any new development use bird safe glass.

This development will change the area significantly, we hope that the new residents will want to enjoy Mt. Joy and participate in the care of the orchard.

This development proposal will certainly generate an ongoing conversation. We encourage anyone interested in the area to stay involved, go to the planning meetings and keep tabs on how things are progressing.

The accompanying screenshots contain a few different shadow views from different points of the year, all taken at noon (shortest shadow), using the tool to track the sun through the whole day gives a much better picture, but this gives the gist. Slide 2 shows the whole shadow of the building rather than just the line.

Sincerely,
Mount Joy Orchard Organizers

04/27/2024

Update: we got more and better data and are changing our position on the development of the Northern Burner Supply lot.

A real estate development that would threaten the health of Mount Joy Community Orchard is currently in the works. We want you to help us defend this precious community resource. Read on to find out how.

WHAT'S GOING ON?
Redfern Properties, one of the largest developers of luxury housing in Portland, is proposing to construct a seven story mixed use building on the lots adjacent to the orchard (see attached documents for more details). Such a tall building in such close proximity would cast the orchard in shadow for most of the day, which would significantly threaten the health of the trees. Many would not survive. The area is currently zoned for a maximum height of four stories (B1 Zoning), which would still cast shadow, but substantially less, a challenge that we believe we could overcome. Portland needs housing and we would not stand in the way of a reasonably scaled building that would help meet the need for housing, especially if it was affordable.

Redfern Properties is attempting to sell this as an affordable housing development, but it isn't. 75% of the units would be market rate, which means affordable for rich people. Furthermore, they are attempting to claim that they must have a zoning change (to B2 Zoning) or the project will not be financially viable. This is absurd on its face. Redfern purchased these lots with the full knowledge that the maximum allowed height is four stories. Are we to believe that they would have made that purchase knowing that a four story development was not financially viable? It's laughable. They're simply trying to maximize profit by going higher and building more units for rich folks, it's that simple. We say NO WAY!

Portland deserves to have both affordable housing AND green spaces that make for a livable city. That will not be accomplished by caving in to the demands of wealthy developers whose only concern is to maximize profits at any cost. Mount Joy Community Orchard should not be collateral damage in their campaign to line their pockets with cash. To be clear, we don't object to new housing being built at this site, only to plans that prioritize maximum profit for developers over the continued existence of public assets like Mt. Joy Orchard.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:
1- Spread the word! Share on socials, tell your friends, etc etc
2- There will be a public planning meeting in the next few weeks to address this issue. We hope that you will attend. Please make sure to get on, or stay tuned to, our mailing list. If you are not on our mailing list, please sign up at https://mountjoyorchard.wixsite.com/mtjoy/newsletter

3- We urge people to take immediate action and contact the Acting Director of the Portland Planning Department, Kevin Kraft, and our District 1 city counselor, Anna Trevorrow, opposing the change in zoning from B1 to B2 for 165 Washington Avenue. Feel free to copy and paste any words from this email that strike your fancy, and/or see the attached sheets for more info.
4- Write a letter to the editor of the Portland Press Herald. Click here for more info on how to do that, and while you’re at it check out this wonderful recent article in the Herald about Mount Joy.
Kevin Kraft - [email protected]
Anna Trevorrow - [email protected] -

In Solidarity, Mount Joy Community Orchard Organizing Team

These PDFs lay out the details of the situation:
https://3cdafe4d-0d71-4d89-9752-2d685cd08957.filesusr.com/ugd/6f992a_3a697d9baece47a6885fbb467590e465.pdf

https://3cdafe4d-0d71-4d89-9752-2d685cd08957.filesusr.com/ugd/6f992a_1acc2d15c1b3438e853d64b8c77b743d.pdf

https://3cdafe4d-0d71-4d89-9752-2d685cd08957.filesusr.com/ugd/6f992a_10652d1771574b8bb0d3e51589056cfd.pdf

02/27/2024

We had so much fun on Saturday, that we are adding 2 more pruning events this spring. Both are free and open to the public. One is our first ever collaboration with our friends at the Boyd St Community Garden! Please dress for the weather and bring any pruning tools you have (some tools will be available to borrow if you don’t have your own).
March 9th 1:00pm - Renovating old fruit trees at Boyd St. Community Garden - While the principals of pruning older/ overgrown fruit trees are similar to young trees, there are some details and techniques that are especially suited to old trees. We will be helping out our friends at Boyd St. Community Garden get some large fruit trees back into shape and you are invited to come learn and help. The garden is at 2 Boyd St., Portland, ME.
March 23rd 1:00pm - Mt. Joy Pruning round 2. We had a great pruning workshop on Feb 24th, but we didn’t quite get the job finished. So we will have a second session. We’ll have an optional pruning workshop for folks who aren’t familiar with pruning.